Friction Fixation
by Perfections-Cat
Summary: For Sasuke, it was revenge for the sake of redemption. But nothing more than a game in the eyes of his brother.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**: Yes, this is the obligatory song-fic. Lyrics come from Muse's _Time is Running Out_, which for some odd reason struck me last summer as being a very Sasuke-Itachi sort of song. As it's been awhile since I've been inside their minds in this manner, and because Itachi is rather difficult to write, I can't guarantee anything on the characterizations. _

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_I think I'm drowning_. There were moments in his life when he felt this to be all too true. Dark thoughts had a nasty habit of slithering up from the depths of his memory and around his heart, pulsating tighter and tighter with every drawn breath. Thick black water snakes born from self-hate and a need for revenge.

Sasuke had always felt them writhing around up and over one another in the deepest parts of his soul. Before he could realize it, they had him by the throat. _Asphyxiated_. Then the episodes would cease, usually with a passing whisper born of anger and rage. Murdered by your own thoughts. What an awful way to go, he thought.

But, no matter how many times he had managed to shrug it off, usually with a grim twitch of his lips, the thought would never disappear. Fade, yes – his desire for revenge fueled an inner fire that could kill anything…almost – but the feeling that he was somehow losing himself never left him entirely. _I want to break this spell that you've created_.

His brother's actions, his own actions that night had left him bound. Cursed forever to seek his only kin's demise, forever haunted by the knowledge that he was, as of yet, not good enough. Sometimes, he wondered if he ever could be. Yet another ploy he felt his brother had exploited in this scheme. One day, he would finish what he had been unable to all those years ago.

At times, Sasuke could hardly believe anything from his former life had been true. This was particularly so when it came to his brother. His parents, as well as the rest of his clan, would forever be immortalized in their last final moments. His father had not changed all that much before his death. Sasuke still only saw the need to earn his own place as his father's rightful son. After all, had Itachi not changed, he never would have caught his father's eye. At least, not in the same way his brother had managed captivate his father's pride.

And his mother…she would forever have that smile – though it had a horrid tendency to transform into the twisted curves of pain - just for him. Even if his father paid him no heed, she was there. She was always there for him. Ready with gentle words and a soft smile that soothed all his childish fears.

And then there was his brother, the root of it all, the single factor that had torn apart his life. _You're something beautiful_. There had been a time when he had thought such a thing of Itachi. Perfect in all the ways an Uchiha could hope to be. Handsome, intelligent, gifted. Sasuke was certain not even the ruler of Hell could have offered a bribe to match all that his brother was. He was the one being Sasuke had wanted to be around more than anyone. His beloved rival and pillar of what he himself might one day be.

_A contradiction_. That was the memory of his brother. There was a definite split, not so much a Jekyll-and-Hyde but two ends of the spectrum melting into one another at the middle. Sort of like the way blue bred with red to create purple, two distinct ends with a murky middle. The strength with which he had admired - even loved though he was loathed to admit that now - his brother had morphed itself into a ferocious hate. The two, love and hate, were inextricably linked after all. He had found this to be true from the relationships he had learned to make after his clan's fall. It wasn't so much as you either loved or hated someone, but was all too often a muddled mix of the two.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: I have many ideas about Itachi, but my favorite to entertain is of him being an absolute bastard. Which may come from the fact that he is _very_ difficult to write. Or that I find myself inexplicably attracted to those types of characters. Whatever it may be, that's what you can expect. And I blame Kat for the slashy undertones, haha. Consider yourself warned.

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Itachi shifted beneath his Akatsuki cloak, fingers idly toying with the ring upon his right hand. He had a subtle, albeit odd, fascination with hands. So many things those delicate fingers could do, could evoke. The pads of his had been worn smooth – a fact that belied the toughness of the skin - through years of handling weaponry and generally snuffing the life out of one being or another. It really was that simple though, the way a single puff of breath from his lips could cease the flicker of a candle. The ease with which a life could end never stopped secretly amusing him.

Beneath the black material, fingers brushed numbly over the cool metal insignia. There was one life, however, that he had trouble blowing out.

Itachi imagined Sasuke's hands had become similar to his. Weapon-worn and deceivingly tough. That thought lured a slight smirk to lips that had remained unmoved by the other notions swimming about in his mind. While he never actively sought out his younger brother, the relationship between them was never far from his mind. After all, it was a great source of…hope. _I want to play the game_.

It was interesting, the things that had passed between the two of them. And Sasuke, though constantly tottering on the edge of disappointment, never failed to elicit some response from him. Usually of a violent nature. But what game between them wouldn't be? He wouldn't have it any other way.

_I want the friction_. Those pretty little love taps they exchanged. Who needed a bouquet when Itachi could give his brother gorgeous florets of black, blue, and purple? And there wasn't a rose on the earth that could bleed such a delicious shade of red. It would be a lie - Itachi nearly smiled - to say he did not derive a great sense of satisfaction from his brother's pain. It was beautiful, the tormented soul.

There was something more to it, though that glimmer of pleasure was a great part of what Itachi liked about their relationship. _You will be the death of me_. That thought, much like his last encounter with Sasuke, hovered near the forefront of his mind. If he were to die by anyone's hands, he mulled, his brother's hands would be the best. Again, there was the small waver of a smile on his lips. Oh, but there were many ways to die.


	3. Chapter 3

With a light grunt, Sasuke pulled himself up, slender fingers digging into the bark of the maple he was currently scaling. He halted on the last of the thick branches, crouched silently amongst the leaves. There were only a handful of stars across the inky sky, pinpoints of light scattered haphazardly as though thrown by a careless hand in a game of jacks. His gaze panned over the horizon, stopping only a moment to notice the crescent moon before continuing southward. Though miles away, he knew Konoha lay there just out of his reach.

Over the months following his departure from his home village, Sasuke had managed to push the recollections of that place out of his head. A swamp of memories he couldn't afford to get lost in. Yet he knew that they would forever be there, lurking in some dark corner of his mind, the path conveniently forgotten by all conscious thought.

However, there was one stream of memory that carved its path beside him no matter where he wandered. Unnerving talent, while not of his brother's aptitude, had allowed him to traverse the worst cataracts nature could throw at him unscathed, yet he continually slipped up under the assault of that one river of thought. A single misstep and he was suddenly confronted with one blood-stained memory or another; a flash of regret and a whispered feeling of what it might have all been.

_Bury it_. Was it really as simple as that, as simple as Naruto and Sakura had made it seem? Stay with them, together they would forever remain as Team 7. In their presence they seemed to suggest he could forget the searing grip of his past and press on. Just as if nothing had happened. He was certain that that was what they all had wished of him. A handful of dirt to cover those memories. He could leave them dying besides the corpses of his kin. Finally drop those childish notions of vengeance and move on.

But there wasn't a friendship on Earth that could wipe clean the slate of his past. No, those deeds remained, as though he had carved them into his very flesh. Silver-scar reminders of that fateful day. _I won't let you bury it_. His resolve to never forget, never forgive had been settled that day at the Valley of the End. Pale pink lips twisted into a wry smirk. He still found that name an amusing fit.

And yet those memories of them had tormented him. He imagined they would have welcomed him back, even now, even after all the time that had slipped between them. Perhaps the village wouldn't view him the same, but those two, Sakura and Naruto, would want him back. It was human condition to wish for better times, moments of life steeped in happiness. Even those buried well within the past.

These thoughts did reassure him, however. No matter the distance he placed between them, the time that pulled them further apart, he felt he knew their intentions. Would always know them. His time spent as a member of Team 7 had not been completely wasted.

_I won't let you smother it_. The wind rose suddenly, chill and swift, sweeping around him, threatening to elicit a series of shudders. Had he remained in Konoha, he felt certain he would have handed himself over to that, freezing his own past so that they could have the future they wanted for him.

Sasuke shifted his weight, his left ankle popping quietly as he gave it a cautious twist. His fingers twitched as a slow wave of rage passed through him. Those sorts of thoughts never failed to rouse his anger. Though he had yet to find a way to fully suppress them, he had learned to rein them in with expert control.

Those fools, for he could think of them in no other way, had wanted him to kill his own self. Slaughter the memory of his family, and simply let the architect of it all escape, the excuse noted in an S-ranking and a line etched in metal. _I won't let you murder it_. His lips pursed tightly together. They had asked him to become a shadow of himself, living in a world of falsified happiness.

But Sasuke also knew that what he had become was nothing more than a dying flicker of what he would have been. Idly, he touched his tongue to a canine, pressed it against the muted sharpness. There was no other 'he' than the one he now knew.


	4. Chapter 4

Itachi remembered that moment well. How could he forget the last time he had felt his brother's flesh, slick with sweat and blood, beneath his hands? His lips twitched into a half-smile of remembrance.

His brother had been so frail compared to him then. A simple application of pressure had snapped the boy's wrist after all. He liked that, liked how the pain had flooded Sasuke's eyes as broken bone rent the surrounding flesh. His brother had the unfortunate habit of appearing quite beautiful when he was full of pain.

And there was also the thrill of Sasuke's words. Itachi loved knowing that his younger brother lived for him and him alone. That was the way it should have been, the only worthwhile life Sasuke could have led. There was no longer the Uchiha name pressuring them both to be things that they were not. Now, it was only the two of them, and his brother's life was fully enveloped in his own.

Every callous word he flung at his brother brought on a whole new wave of hurt, decorated beautifully with spirals of anger and desperation. Each sentence smoldering with the remnants of truth, driving the point deeper – he wasn't yet strong enough, wasn't yet smart enough, a foolish child and nothing more - with merciless precision. And those eyes, surprisingly similar to his own, had glared up at him. Wide with hate and shimmering with brand new level of pain.

Beneath his grasp, he had felt his brother searching for the strength to repel him, felt him failing miserably at the attempt. Muscles pulling taunt, chakra flooding each and every cell in preparation. Only to be cut down in the face of his own power, a few more ice-encased words filing down the rage. Insult to injury, quite literally.

Sasuke's eyes, however, never left his own. Not even as the oxygen clotted up within his throat unable to pass beyond the grip Itachi had upon that delicate throat.

He loved that look. Swelling pride – it seemed the name Uchiha still inspired it despite their fate – burned fiercely there, mingled dangerously with the hate he had instilled that fatal night. It had the power to become something wonderfully explosive.

Not unlike another force. Itachi noted that recollection with an upward jolt of his lips, irritation dissipating from his chest and out through his mouth. The seal was something that had not gone unnoticed. He had felt it tugging violently at his brother's will. _Our time is running out_. He had known then there were only a few months before Orochimaru would try to claim his brother's birthright for his own.

However, Itachi had very little intention of sitting idly by while Sasuke signed himself over for the sake of revenge. That wasn't what this had all been about, and the fact that his brother had failed to notice this was more than enough to stir up a sense of rage within him. That anger, he knew, had an awful habit of slipping out whenever he came across his brother, always causing him to act a bit more harshly than had been his original intent.

_You can't push it underground_. Orochimaru would not succeed in drowning out his brother's hatred. Though Itachi had the vague notion Sasuke would prevent any such thing from happening. He knew that only he remained in his brother's vision, that Sasuke understood what Orochimaru was ultimately after. Too deeply carved into his brother's memories to ever be overridden.

Sasuke had not yet disappointed him in that fact. He knew his brother would seek him out in the name of revenge, that final clash of brotherly love. Itachi had little desire to deal with a mere puppet, void of its memories and hateful – he preferred to think of it as a more realistic sense of love, closer to its roots than the lofty ideals his brother had once had of him - longing.

_You can't stop it screaming out_. And if it meant throwing his brother into another 24-hour whirlwind of death and decay, he would readily do it. Besides, he had a soft spot for the terror-driven cry his brother had voiced that night. It let him know Sasuke still felt him after all their time apart.


End file.
